Zhou’s blog post is titled “His and Their National Dream,” where “he” is Mao Zedong and “they” are his companion founders of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Zhou counters internal criticism of China’s status quo by explaining the glorious military history that reinforces his love for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the nation.

The netizen’s annotations, which stand out from the original text in bold, draw attention to Zhou Xiaoping’s tendency to blatantly disregard historical accuracy.

His and Their National Dream

Zhou Xiaoping

…When the Chinese government had just established itself from the ruins; (Better to be clear that you are talking about the government of the PRC. There has always been a “Chinese government.” The Republican government and the Qing government were both “Chinese governments.”) when the Chinese people managed to gain a new lease on life from the fires of war; when we erased the lives of some tens of millions of men and sons on the battlefield, when we managed to chase off the Eight-Nation Alliance; when we had managed to establish our own nation; (Chase off the Eight-Nation Alliance? Was it you, Zhou Xiaoping, who chased them off? During the Boxers‘ 1900 siege of Beijing, the Eight Nation Alliance entered the capital and Empress Dowager Cixi fled west in a panic. The Qing government ended up signing the Boxer Protocolwith the Eight Nation Alliance, paid reparations, and made concessions.) the Americans didn’t leave us even a trace of breathing room. In 1950 the previous wave of former invaders had just left, and the Seventeen-Nation Allied Army [i.e. the United Nations Command] invaded us again under the leadership of the United States. (This is nonsense. On June 25, 1950, Kim Il Sung attacked South Korea unannounced, and the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 82 which condemned North Korea’s actions and authorized forces to block the North Korean army. Even if they were invading, they were invading North Korea, so how could it be that “Japan had just left, and America invaded us again,” huh? Aren’t you just talking a bunch of nonsense here?)

After making landfall in Korea, the Seventeen-Nation Allied Armies swept into Pyongyang, continuing to make a rapid advance toward the Yalu River, their goal being to move in the direction of the industrial base China had just established in the northeast. (Please read a history of the Korean War, okay? Because China and the Soviet Union had just signed the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance, which stipulated that signatory nations were obligated to provide assistance in military affairs. This meant that to invade China was to take on the Soviet Union as an enemy. In order to prevent the Soviet Union from joining in, even though there was a minor amount of cross-border military activity, from the beginning to the end the American government demanded that [General] MacArthur exercise restraint, and not allow the fires of war to reach China’s northeast. For a time they declared the entire border region with China’s northeast a no-fly zone. For this reason, MacArthur had a serious falling out with President Truman, which in the end led to MacArthur being discharged. Zhou Xiaoping ignores historical fact when he claims that the United Nations attacked China—if he’s not ignorant, then he must be malevolently misleading his readers.)

If these industrial bases had been pounded into rubble, then China would never have had nuclear bombs, guided missiles, tanks, submarines, fertilizer, or mechanized factories, and they also never would have had created trains and boats. (Oh, come on, even in the Qing dynasty, the Jiangnan dockyards could already produce warships. By 1920, they had already exported large ships to the United States; the Mawei Shipyard had already built our nation’s first airplane in 1919, in the seventh year of Emperor Guangxu [1881] China made its first train, and in 1931 China produced its first automobile.)Then the people of China would forever have suffered the torments of hunger and warfare like today’s Somalia and Afghanistan.(Don’t use the word “forever”in every sentence, you’re just being alarmist. Will history from here on out be decided by you and you alone, Zhou Xiaoping?)

At that time the Seventeen-Nation Allied Armies had cutting-edge military armaments with ferocious firepower: their guns, tanks, airplanes, and artillery were a hundred time more ferocious than those of the troops who had previously invaded from Japan. At that time, China’s People’s Liberation Army basically had nothing. Since they had just established the nation, all they had were some locally manufactured hand grenades and an odd assortment of firearms. (More nonsense. During the time period in which the Soviet Union occupied the northeast, they passed on the weapons and equipment they confiscated from the Japanese to the CCP’s military, including artillery, tanks, airplanes, and other heavy weapons. Besides, by 1947 the CCP had begun to use the numerous factories left behind in Dalian after Japan’s surrender to build a military firm on an enormous scale–the “New Construction Company,” established to make a heroic contribution to the effort to seize political power.)

And it was under these conditions that he [Mao Zedong] and they [Mao’s comrades] did not abandon their own dream for their nation. With great difficulty, the people of China managed to establish a homeland and to protect it from destruction; they managed to get a piece of land to eke out a living, and they managed to prevent the raping and pillaging of their wives and children, the young and old. (Such a rich and terrible tableau must have come from Zhou Xiaoping’s sexual fantasies.) At this time, on the battlefields of North Korea, the most elite troops of the People’s Republic of China put everything on the line, and Chinese people bet their house on them. The soldiers who took part in the war with the American-led Seventeen-Nation Allied Armies were all veteran troops. On average these seasoned soldiers had participated in 100-400 military campaigns big and small. (Little Zhou, did you count them up? What is your source? To speak without thinking, “a river of words flowing from your mouth,” this is your precious style.)

They survived their fight against the Eight-Nation Allied Armies. (The Eight-Nation Alliance invaded China in 1900. That was during the Qing dynasty, fully 50 years before the Korean War. I’m speechless.) They survived their fight against the Japanese military (Are you talking about the National Revolutionary Army? Because that’s absolutely true. When we entered the Korean War, a relatively large number of these troops were conscripted, but much of the CCP military didn’t join until the Civil War, and never fought against the Japanese.) They survived their fight against the puppet armies and mountain bandits. They survived the Nanjing-Shanghai-Hangzhou Campaign, the Huaihai Campaign, and the Hundred Regiments Offensive. (You’ve mixed up the order of these campaigns, Comrade Zhou.) They survived the forest of guns and rain of bullets, artillery flying in the conflagration of war. But in the face of the overwhelming firepower of the Seventeen-Nation Allied Armies, these soldier-gods (soldier-gods??),who had survived hundreds of battles, were cut down just like trees, row after after row. (Shameless mass charge tactics made them into tragic cannon fodder.)

On the plain of steel they hugged explosives and crawled under enemy tanks to detonate their payload. In Changjinghu they were turned into living ice sculptures by temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius. At the coast they plunged into the sea to follow American surplus troops already fleeing on speedboats, carrying mortars on their shoulders to continue firing on the enemy. They did all this to let loose their cries, eager to force these foreigners who were more vicious and wolf-like than wolves to withdraw forever from their own homeland… (Who is more vicious and wolf-like than wolves? The Kim family dynasty or the Americans? Compare the lives of the North Koreans and the South Koreans and you’ll know the answer. Their own homeland? Could it be that in Comrade Zhou Xiaoping’s heart of hearts, North Korea is really his ancestral land?)

Having endured these campaigns, the best men and boys in the Chinese people’s modern history nearly all died. Mao Zedong and many, many of the common people’s sons alike all died on the battlefield, becoming immortal spirits to protect our current peace and prosperity. (That a bitter sacrifice like this was traded for the world’s most authoritarian, despotic and shameless political power–their deaths weren’t worth it, and they died unjustly! Their deaths did not protect our peace and prosperity, but instead the throne of the Kim dynasty, three generations of fatties who indulged in a life of luxury and extravagance, and the boundless tragedy of the people of North Korea!)

The CCP isn’t my “second set of parents,” but the great benefactor of my parents and former generations. Several of my grandfather’s brothers died in the chaos of war, and it was the CCP which ended all the wars. When my parents were young they endured starvation, and in the end it was the CCP which launched a project to repair the railroads which end all famines. Therefore, my love for China and my love the CCP is a very natural thing. If you’re not an ungrateful wretch, how could you not love the CCP? [Chinese]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2014/10/zhou-xiaoping-director-history/feed/0Minitrue: Hush Story on Xi’s Praise for Patriotic Bloggershttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2014/10/minitrue-hush-story-xis-praise-patriotic-bloggers/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2014/10/minitrue-hush-story-xis-praise-patriotic-bloggers/#commentsFri, 17 Oct 2014 00:55:32 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=178241The following censorship instructions, issued to the media by government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online. The name of the issuing body has been omitted to protect the source.

Minitrue: All websites find and delete the article “Xinhua: What Kind of People are the Internet Writers Xi Jinping Questioned?” and related content. (October 16, 2014)

In a revealing moment, Xi asked Zhou Xiaoping, a well-known Internet blogger in his early 30s, and a second blogger, Hua Qianfang, also in his 30s, to stand up and be recognized by the largely older attendees. Xi praised Zhou’s and Hua’s essays—known for their patriotism and anti-Western fulminations—for having “positive energy.” Zhou has recently gained notoriety for a particularly virulent essay entitled “Nine Knockout Blows in America’s Cold War Against China.”

In that essay, Zhou savages the tendency of young Chinese to worship the West and accuses the U.S. of using the Internet and its cultural exports, such as Hollywood movies, to try to undermine China’s social and political system. Zhou also attacks America as being viciously anti-China and defaming Chinese, he says, to a degree seen previously only in Hitler’s vilification of the Jews. [Source]

Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. The date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source.

On the evening of July 7, the Sina Weibo account @Lichengpeng disappeared. Of all the Weibo accounts that have been banned during the recent period, Li Chengpeng’s is one of the most illustrative cases. Li Chengpeng is often referred to as “Big Eyed Li,” and is extremely representative of the “Big Vs.” His language is fierce, caustic, and pretty much always “cursing the government.”

[…] If a few radical liberals want to continue bumping against the line and being antagonistic, then that is their political and personal choice. They must bear the consequences of doing so, and its not something worth grousing about. […] [Source]

Many of Li’s fellow netizens and former followers took to Weibo to comment on his expulsion and the state media commentary that followed.

于建嵘：When reporting incidents like a writer’s personal media accounts being blocked, the national-level media doesn’t question whether a citizen’s basic rights are being infringed on. Rather, it evaluates the “pros and cons of Weibo.” What kind of a mentality is that?!

胡泳：单仁平 [Han Renping]：”@李承鹏 [Li Chengpeng] Account Vanishes, it Was Bound to Happen Sooner or Later.” http://t.cn/Rve2Up4 In 2008, China entered a period of turbulence. After that, two people had a lot to say about many major public incidents. One of them is Han Han, the other Li Chengpeng. And now, one is stabbed from the back, the other publicly terminated. They were “doomed” to meet their end.

The following comments have been deleted by Sina and retrieved via FreeWeibo.

张雪忠：The containment of expression and the censorship of ideas are the most ridiculous things in the world: a small group of people has absolutely and infinitely no confidence in society, yet they require society to devote absolute and infinite trust in their judgement and impartiality! Those who express their thoughts openly and publicly have to be monitored with secret standards by those who hide in the dark. This is the major reason that a society is intellectually dim and morally low.

冉雄飞：Speak up for Li Chengpeng! Even though I once had a lawsuit with him, I still support the Big Eyes’ actions as a “dissident”! A country truly needs an opposing voice. In recent decades, the government has been focusing on economic development, which is near-sighted and hurts the environment. It has also indulged in many crimes, including forced demolitions and corruption. It is not doing a good job, yet it does not allow the common people utter a word of complaint. If it wants to continue managing us, it has to first wipe its own ass!

莫鸣：Weibo celebrity, “Big Eyed” Li Chengpeng had his Sina Weibo and blog blocked. Then, the chief editor of the Global Times kicks him while he’s down with a weibo. All sorts of celebrities sobbed endlessly. In the literary circle, Li Chengpeng is known for his outspokenness, which has set him against many hypocritical “moralists.” This is a country where, though freedom of speech is guaranteed by the constitution, various means are regularly used to deprive people of those rights. People are even sentenced and locked up for speaking out. Telling the truth is risky, only lies may survive.

wshsh2011: From Li Chengpeng’s elimination to today’s Global Times editorial, the radical liberals should continue on. In the space of just three days, the higher-ups seem to have made a subtle change. In my humble opinion, every crackdown simply stirs up greater resistance. The government can make an about-face, and Mao-Deng tactics will only aggravate the crisis. Only in balance amidst the confrontation will the political situation hold. The world is moving towards freedom and democracy. Only an idiot would oppose the world.

On May 20th, I was notified by the department head at Tencent that I was being suspended, citing radical expressions I made in my meeting with the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry earlier this year and the propaganda directives I publicized online. I was told that I would receive a final decision after Tencent coordinated with the propaganda authorities.

On May 23rd, Tencent’s HR department notified me of the termination of my labor contract for “leaking business secrets and other confidential and sensitive information.” On the same day when I went back to collect my personal belongings, I found that my desktop had already been removed without my knowledge. Nor did anyone give me a reasonable explanation for what might have been done to my computer during my suspension from the 20th to the 23rd.

[…] Towards the end of the 40-minute meeting, when the spokeswoman said we could ask two more questions, I raised my hand. I said I was very concerned about Chinese prisoners of conscience, especially human rights activist Xu Zhiyong and the author and activist Liu Xiaobo. Xu Zhiyong was sentenced to four years in prison in January, 2014, and Liu Xiaobo was serving a prison term for “inciting subversion of state power” and he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010.

[…] Meanwhile, I became a sensitive word on Tencent Weibo. Though I could still log in my Weibo account and post, but a search for my name would yield “search result cannot be displayed according to relevant laws, regulations and policies.” [Source]

Zhang also explains how and why he decided to leak propaganda directives, along with others in the media and Internet industry: “By publicizing orders from the ‘Ministry of Truth’ online, I want to tear open the iron curtain and reveal to the world how censorship of press and expression is carried out in China. Of course this irks the authorities and is regarded as an open challenge to their power.” Many such directives have been collected and translated by CDT for our series “Directives from the Ministry of Truth.”

On Thursday, he faced down a threat from Beijing police. “As a public figure, you need to be responsible for what you say and do,” the police warned him, publicly. “Shall I wait for you at home, or shall I turn myself in?” he responded.

It was the Sichuan earthquake in 2008, one of the worst natural disasters in China’s history, that changed Mr Li from a football-mad sports addict into a serious social critic.

[…] “Before [the earthquake], I loved football, rock music, drinking beer… and writing love stories every now and then. I wanted a comfortable and happy life,” he said.

“[But] when you see several thousand lives vanish before your eyes it changes you in a big way. I now have a much greater battlefield to face.” [Source]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2014/03/li-chengpeng-soccer-commentator-voice-people/feed/0Wang Qinglei: A Farewell to CCTVhttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/12/wang-qinglei-farewell-cctv/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/12/wang-qinglei-farewell-cctv/#commentsMon, 09 Dec 2013 21:12:23 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=166413One week ago, former CCTV producer Wang Qinglei posted an open letter to weibo criticizing his former employer and the broader propaganda apparatus behind it. Wang had been fired from CCTV for posting online comments condemning CCTV’s role in the crackdown on online rumors and the subsequent detention and televised “confessions” of popular bloggers, including Charles Xue. China Change has now translated Wang’s letter in full:

Ten years would not be insignificant to anyone’s life. For me, these were ten years that made me and turned me into a news media professional. But at the same time, the stifling environment of this place also contorted me, making my work here an unceasing struggle and agony. In the past couple of weeks, many coworkers gave me phone calls or WeChat messages, and even some reporters whom I had never crossed paths with during my ten years, sent text messages, to express their shock, anger, disappointment, or even cursing, and of course also good wishes of the most sincere kind. They were all bewildered how the episode had come to this end. Long-time co-workers lamented with me, “Over all these years, there have been editors, reporters, producers, and directors who have been suspended because of stories, but you are the first producer who has been fired for speaking your true feelings! What is wrong with CCTV these days?” Actually, the reason, as well as the logic, is very simple: kill one to warn a hundred. The leaders know very well that there are many people at CCTV who think like me, but I was just the one who dared to speak out, that’s all. This is the method they can use to fetter everyone’s thinking, futilely.

[…] In this system, I am of the opinion that it is the distorted people who are healthy, because even if they feel helpless, they at least know what the right direction should be and do not change their pursuit. On the other hand, the people who feel at home in the system, like a fish in water, are sick, because their reliance on it has already made them numb to the point that they submit to it completely. And they become even more conceited when they succeed in it, skyrocketing up through the ranks. Perhaps no one can state clearly what a good system is, but everyone is able to sense when a system is bad — and the current system is a terrible mess of a system. Some people will say, if you cannot stand it, you can choose to leave, right? It seems like this, but I believe that the reason many people like me came to CCTV was not for money or status, but rather to realize their own ideals. I had decided that this would be a life-long value when I was still a reporter with a salary of only 4,000 RMB per month. I accepted the firing without having talks [with them] because I did not want lower my head and compromise for the sake of survival. What would come out of compromising myself and what would be the significance of it? To continue the agony of having to submit and the reality that cannot be altered for the sake of the position and the income? [Source]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/12/wang-qinglei-farewell-cctv/feed/0On National Day, Bloggers Remember “64”http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/09/national-day-bloggers-remember-64/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/09/national-day-bloggers-remember-64/#commentsTue, 01 Oct 2013 05:35:43 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=163490As China celebrated its 64th National Day on Tuesday, and top officials flocked to Tiananmen Square amid a heavy fog in Beijing, bloggers exploited a loophole in the “Great Firewall” and paid tribute to the victims of the 1989 military crackdown. From the South China Morning Post:

Bloggers jumped at the rare chance to mention and discuss the word “64”, referring to June 4th, allowed by online censors though still strictly monitored, by paying condolences to the students and civilians who died in the 1989 incident.

“64, hard to forget,” a Zhejiang blogger wrote, posting a photo of what looked like an official flower display featuring the number “64” and the Chinese words “hard to forget”.

[…] Li Guobin, a Shenzhen-based lawyer, in a weibo post that was quickly censored, urged his Chinese compatriots to mourn the countless lives lost since 1949 when the Communist Party came to power. [Source]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/09/national-day-bloggers-remember-64/feed/0Woeser Under House Arrest Once Againhttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/06/woeser-under-house-arrest-once-again/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/06/woeser-under-house-arrest-once-again/#commentsThu, 20 Jun 2013 23:46:49 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=158159Since 2008, Tibetan writer, activist, and blogger Woeser has repeatedly found herself (along with her husband Wang Lixiong) under house arrest. According to a post published yesterday on her Chinese-language blog, Wang and Woeser are again under detention in their Beijing residence. To close her post, Woeser included a summarizing English translation written by a friend explaining the current circumstances leading to their confinement:

Once more, as if holding to a depressingly regular schedule, Tsering Woeser and Wang Lixiong have been placed under house arrest.

This time it’s in order to skew the reports that will emerge from a trip to Lhasa that has been organized for foreign journalists in China.

Woeser has already met some of the journalists and the authorities seem concerned that her views will contradict the rosey picture that they want to present via an approved itinerary and scripted encounters meant to project an image of happy Tibetans living happy lives.

The group is scheduled to leave for Lhasa on July 6 and to be in Tibet until the 13th. A trip for diplomats is also scheduled, possibly for late June.

[…]For the moment it appears that this confinement will last at least until June 25 and possibly longer. [Source]

“This time [the house arrest is] in order to skew the reports that will emerge from a trip to [Tibet’s regional capital] Lhasa that has been organized for foreign journalists in China,” she said.

Earlier this week, Woeser had met with two reporters and a foreign diplomat who plan to visit the Tibet Autonomous Region, the DPA news agency said.

“[Chinese] authorities seem concerned that my views will contradict the rosy picture that they want to present via an approved itinerary and scripted encounters meant to project an image of happy Tibetans living happy lives,” Woeser wrote in her blog. [Source]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/06/woeser-under-house-arrest-once-again/feed/0Tiger Temple: ‘A Long Ride Toward a New China’http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/05/tiger-temple-a-long-ride-toward-a-new-china/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/05/tiger-temple-a-long-ride-toward-a-new-china/#commentsWed, 15 May 2013 06:16:06 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=156079A short film in the New York Times’ OpDoc series looks at blogger Zhang Shihe, also known as Tiger Temple, who rides his bicycle through China’s countryside and documents the lives of villagers:

In a country with one of the most sophisticated media and Internet censorship systems, Mr. Zhang and other bloggers must exercise great caution when writing about politically sensitive content — often skirting the label “citizen reporter.” But as Mr. Zhang told me during filming: “If they want to get you, they can find a way. Not even a wise man can be wise all the time.”

In 2010, he was taken by the police and put under house arrest for 10 days, during the country’s annual parliamentary meetings. News spread quickly. That day he received more than 2,000 text messages — good wishes poured in from concerned friends and readers who supported his efforts to help flooded villagers, defrauded farmers and the Beijing homeless. On this day, he said, he “felt the true power of the Internet.” [Source]

“Please delete the petition,” a security agent told the blogger. The blogger, who did not want to be named, told the South China Morning Post that the agent had tracked her down from her registration information on Weibo and invited her to “tea”, an euphemism for a police interrogation. The agent had insisted that she withdraw the post from the White House website, she said.

But the US website does not allow petitions to be deleted. Frustrated and fearing retaliation, the blogger posted again on Weibo:

“Help needed! Will someone please tell me how to delete a White House petition? The police have talked to me, and I am scared.”

Another blogger responded: “Looks like you need to start another White House petition to have the first one deleted.” [Source]

Read the petition here. It currently has more than 2,000 signatures, but requires 200,000 by June 6 in order to get an official White House response.

With his five cellphones constantly ringing, it is not easy these days to get the undivided attention of Zhu Ruifeng, a self-styled citizen journalist whose freelance campaign against graft has earned him pop-star acclaim and sent a chill through Chinese officialdom.

[…] A former migrant worker with a high school education, Mr. Zhu has become an overnight celebrity in China in the two months since he posted online secretly recorded video of an 18-year-old woman having sex with a memorably unattractive 57-year-old official from the southwestern municipality of Chongqing. The official lost his job. Mr. Zhu gained a million or so new microblog followers.

The takedown was just the opening act, Mr. Zhu says. He promises to release six more sex videos that he predicts will make a number of other men run for cover. “I’m fighting a war,” he said with characteristic bombast, his voice a near-shriek. “Even if they beat me to death, I won’t give up my sources or the videos.”

[…] Mr. Zhu, who began his Web site in 2006, largely relies on whistle-blowers to funnel damning evidence to him. Through the years, he said, he has exposed 100 officials, bringing down more than a third of them. He has been threatened and beaten; more than once, he says, he has been offered huge sums of money to delete an incriminating post from his site, which is called People’s Supervision.

Nevertheless, his crusade has cost him. He has chosen to end his marriage, he says, rather than see his wife, a P.L.A. officer, suffer retaliation from his adversaries. “To be honest,” he told The Times’ Jonah Kessel, “I would like to tend to the big family in sacrifice of the small family.”

Powerful interests were searching for his sources, he explained over lunch last Friday [January 25th]. Police detained one contact in the southwestern city of Chongqing, where the scandal had erupted, Zhu said. They traced a second source to Henan province, hundreds of miles away, and had questioned that person at least twice.

Two days after that conversation, the police showed up at Zhu’s home in Beijing. They banged on his door Sunday night and demanded that he come with them. He refused but reported to a police station Monday morning, where he was held for more than seven hours. Police officers from Chongqing pressed him to hand over five sex recordings he hasn’t made public and to tell them the identities of his informants. They threatened that “if you don’t present evidence, you will be in violation of national law,” according to Zhu’s account.

The pressure on Zhu suggests that despite Communist Party rhetoric about an all out campaign against corruption, limits remain. The party’s leader, Xi Jinping, said shortly after being installed in November that failing to crack down on corruption would risk the downfall of the state. But while Beijing has dismissed some wayward officials and canceled extravagant banquets that stoked resentment among average Chinese, it so far seems set on keeping a tight grip to keep the process from spinning out of control.

“Zhao was officially arrested on December 31 for extortion,” Zhang said yesterday, adding that she had been “brainwashed” by a company she left in 2009 to secretly record herself having sex with officials to give the firm leverage. “After all, she was young and a victim herself.”

[…] Zhao has drawn support on social media, with internet users hailing her as a heroine for exposing corrupt officials.

Many have compared Zhao’s case with that of Deng Yujiao , a hotel waitress who in 2009 stabbed to death a local party official in Hubei and wounded another after they tried to force themselves on her.

Deng was charged with assault, rather than murder, but walked free on grounds of diminished responsibility after having received widespread support from the online community.

What makes Han different from critics of earlier eras is his use of ironic humor instead of historical allegory. Writers in the early twentieth century like Lu Xun explored this voice, but Han makes it his. Born in 1982, he dabbles in the modern forms of evasion: ennui, irony, boredom, and sarcasm. He’s witty and wry and when he’s on, he’s really on. A good example was a blog he wrote last year called “The Disconnected Nation” (also reprinted in The China Story, an illuminating collection of essays edited by the Australian sinologist Geremie Barmé about contemporary China, available in a free downloadable pdf).

[…]

Too often, however, Han seems to lack other arrows in his quiver. Some of the essays are tedious—he goes on and on in one essay about how people should have been allowed to donate old clothes to victims of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake; the government had wanted only new clothes. It was a worthwhile criticism to make at the time, but hardly the most urgent part of the authorities’ mismanagement of the disaster; now, four years later, it seems obscure. His phlegmatism also dominates a 2010 post on an earlier round of protests about the disputed Senkaku or Diaoyu islands—which were also the cause of the recent anti-Japanese riots. He said protesters should concern themselves first with whether they have a decent job or family “rather than worrying about something so remote.” It’s a fair point, one supposes, but sounds like the advice from an overly sensible, mortgaged-to-the-hilt middle-aged father rather than an edgy young blogger. Go home and play with your kids is actually more than that—it’s wrong. In a country where too few people concern themselves with big affairs, the answer should rather be to stay engaged while learning to think more critically and skeptically. Perhaps it’s no wonder that some critics claim in excruciating detail that his father—a frustrated author himself who once used the pen name Han Han—contributed to his son’s essays, or even wrote some of them outright.

Han’s exhausted, burned-out attitude is even less convincing when he discusses political reform. At the end of last year, he published three essays that caused a small uproar in China. Han advocated a go-slow attitude toward democracy, essentially saying Chinese people were not ready for it yet because they weren’t well-enough educated and behaved. The arguments were fair enough, but applicable to almost any country on the planet, especially, in this election season, the United States. The three essays have been interpreted (for example by the editor Chang Ping, whom I interviewed in January) as showing how many Chinese have given up hope for change and so resort to explaining why it shouldn’t happen. They certainly show how careful Han is not to overstep the golden rule of dissent in China: measured criticism is okay, but not advocacy of systemic change.

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/10/han-han-why-arent-you-grateful/feed/0The Most Famous Blogger You’ve Never Heard Ofhttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/08/the-most-famous-chinese-blogger-youve-never-heard-of/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/08/the-most-famous-chinese-blogger-youve-never-heard-of/#commentsWed, 29 Aug 2012 00:03:44 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=142389In the Atlantic, Jeffrey Wasserstrom looks at the work of Han Han and asks why he isn’t a household name in the West, despite being perhaps the world’s most popular blogger:

Han Han is a big deal in China — and among many China scholars and journalists in the West — and there’s no mystery as to why. He has a large and loyal following among young Chinese, something the three dissidents I listed, as admirable as they are, haven’t attained. And he has consistently been at or near the center of some of the liveliest debates taking place on the Chinese Internet, the closest thing to a public sphere that exists on the mainland.

[…]

How is it that someone so significant and interesting remains largely unknown outside of China? It can’t be because no one has written about him. Back in 2009, Simon Elegant profiled him for Time. In 2010, Foreign Policy included him in its list of 100 top global thinkers and Perry Link celebrated his “Aesopian wit” in an International Herald Tribune op-ed. Last year, the New Yorker ran an excellent piece on him by Evan Osnos cleverly titled “The Han Dynasty,” and Fast Company called him one of the 100 most creative people in business. This year he’s been the subject of an unusually engaging “Lunch with the FT” feature by David Pilling, the Asia editor of the Financial Times, and was discussed in Jacob Weisberg’s Slate essay on Internet censorship in China. And so on.

One reason his global fame might trail that of other Chinese figures could be that nothing he has done has garnered international headlines of the sort that came with Ai Weiwei’s arrest, Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel prize, and Chen Guangcheng’s escape. It’s one thing for an individual to be profiled in magazines, and quite another for him or her to do something that lands them on the front page or the CNN news ticker, displayed on muted televisions at airports and in gyms. And there is something about the narrative of the brave, rebellious dissident that appeals to Western audiences in a way that an inside-the-system blogger might not.

And Han Han’s writings have not been readily available in English. There’ve been plenty of translations of his blog posts, but typically only in outlets read by the China-obsessed.

As the Chinese government expands its efforts to police the Internet and block websites in the country, the rising tide of censorship has aroused a wave of citizen reporters committed to investigating local news stories. Two such rogue bloggers include Zola and Tiger Temple. When tech-savvy Zola noticed that local newspapers were selectively reporting the news, he took matters into his own hands, posing as a curious onlooker at crime scenes and snapping photos and videos that he posts to his site. Called upon for help by rural farmers and displaced city dwellers alike, Tiger Temple bicycles around the Chinese countryside drawing attention to societal issues in communities that otherwise would not have a voice.

A famous story tells how, in a previous life, the Buddha took pity on a starving tigress, who might otherwise have had to eat her newborn cubs. He sacrificed himself instead. The tale is often recalled by Tibetans in exile in Dharamsala in northern India as they lament a seemingly endless cycle of self-immolations in their homeland. In the past year at least 26 Tibetans, mostly young Buddhist monks, have set fire to themselves. As they burned, usually to death, they shouted slogans against Chinese rule and for the return of the Dalai Lama, their spiritual leader, who has been based in Dharamsala since 1959. The moral of the tiger parable is that, though Buddhism abhors even self-inflicted violence, it can be justified if the sacrifice is for the greater good. The agonising question, however, is whether these brave acts do anybody any good at all.

“Expressed through these self-immolations is the will of Tibetans,” the letter said, referring to the 26 self-immolations since February 2009 in protest against Beijing’s rule in Tibetan-populated areas and calling for the return of Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

Woeser, who has written critically of the Chinese government’s policies in Tibet, said that the self-immolations by mostly young Tibetans “make one feel grief-stricken,” and that ending the trend “deserves to be treated as a matter of utmost urgency.”

“Twenty-six cases make it clear what Tibetans have wanted to articulate,” said the joint letter by Woeser and a senior Tibetan religious figure, Arjia Rinpoche, now living in exile in the United States, and Tibet’s Amdo-based poet Gade Tsering.

“Yet, articulation of one’s will cannot be an ultimate goal. The will has to be put into practice, transforming into reality,” they said in the letter titled “Appeal to Tibetans To Cease Self-Immolation: Cherish Your Life in a Time of Oppression.”

The Dalai Lama has praised the courage of those who engage in self-immolation and has attributed the protests to what he calls China’s “cultural genocide” in Tibet. He also says he does not encourage the protests, noting that they could invite an even harsher crackdown.

As a wave of self-immolations continues in Tibetan areas of China, Chinese authorities not only are tightening security, but also are stepping up efforts to discredit those who have set themselves on fire to protest China’s policies in the region.

[…]On Wednesday, Wu Zegang, an ethnic-Tibetan and head of Aba prefecture – where most of the recent self-immolations have taken place – blamed separatists for the unrest.

Wu said that most of the people who are carrying out acts of self-immolation shout out separatist slogans such as “Independence for Tibet” or aim to divide China.

He also said that many of those who have committed suicide have criminal records and are outcasts.

In an effort to instill Chinese values, authorities have in recent years stepped up what they call “patriotic education” in schools and monasteries, forcing Tibetans to renounce the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet, and to study communist theory. Such efforts have backfired.

“There is an escalation of control and restrictions in daily life, and that burst out in frustration,” said Lobsang Jinpa, a 29-year-old former monk from Nyitso Monastery in Dawu, Sichuan province, which, like Gansu and Qinghai, has a large Tibetan population. He knew two people who died by self-immolation. He left China last year and now lives in Dharamsala, India.

The government has tried to downplay such motivations. China’s New China News Agency reported Wednesday that Tsering Kyi [a recently deceased self-immolator] had been suffering from fainting spells after hitting her head on a radiator while playing in a classroom. “The medical treatment held up her studies and her school scores began to decline, which put a lot of pressure on her and made her lose courage in life,” the agency reported.